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First on Everest?
Second Step Scaled
By Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson and Eric R. Simonson
Excerpted from
Ghosts of Everest
by Jochen Hemmleb, Larry A. Johnson and Eric R. Simonson |
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Whether they were at the Second or Third Step when Odell saw them later, it is clear that Mallory and Irvine had made excellent progress earlier that morning as they moved along the Northeast Ridge and surmounted the First Step. Other expeditions since 1924 have spent a lot of time negotiating this ridge section, notably the inexperienced Chinese expedition in 1960. The 1933 British expedition's Wager and Wyn-Harris chose to go around the First Step, rather than scale it. After moving laterally along the upper edge of the Yellow Band for three hours, they found it impossible to find a route up to the ridge crest again (later expeditions have, but only under conditions of heavy snow cover). Mallory was known to have preferred the ridge-crest route and was exceptionally skilled at routefinding. David Pye, his friend, climbing partner, and, eventually, biographer, commented:"I remember being repeatedly impressed by his genius for picking out a complicated route, both from a distance, and in detail when it came to close quarters."
As research expedition member Dave Hahn has pointed out, Mallory and Irvine could have topped the First Step either by a direct route up the ridge crest or by the now common traverse around to the right. The former would have taken more time, but both are possible.
Their next hurdle was, of course, the Second Step. In 1960, the Chinese expedition first considered climbing directly up the terminal prow of the Second Step, but abandoned that alternative in favor of a traverse around to the right, in roughly the same manner by which one turns the First Step. It is the obvious line of least resistance -- though, as Hahn would later say, "it definitely had its sporty bits."
Whichever route Mallory and Irvine took, what certainly is clear from Odell's account is that by 12:50 P.M., they had successfully scaled the Second Step. Whether Odell saw them at the Second or Third Step is, in effect, immaterial, at least in this regard. They were demonstrably not at the First Step; they were high on the mountain.
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